I used to love writing blog posts and book reviews, and then I became a PhD student. From 2019 to 2024 I buried myself waist-deep in research while juggling a career as a freelance poet, creative writing teacher and academic. So I’m afraid this blog has taken a back seat for a while. Inspired by some of my fellow poets and their fabulous writer blogs (Natalie Ann Holborrow and Zoë Brigley, in particular) I am going to try and add a new blog post at least once a month, so here we go…   

First: teaching. I was delighted to be invited by Owen Sheers to teach his MA Poetry module this term at Swansea University, while he took some time out to work on other projects. My weekly trip to the beach (and campus) in Swansea Bay has been a real highlight of the last few months. It did make life rather busy for a while, as I was teaching at Cardiff University too, but I enjoyed every minute of my Swansea adventures (and am now far more familiar than I need to be with the M4). I’ve also been plotting (!) and will be delivering FIVE new short creative writing courses – all online, in the next academic year (more details coming soon).

Because of the teaching, I’ve not been able to do as many readings as I’d like, but I have managed to squeeze in a few. Back in January I travelled up to the Manchester Poetry Library, to perform as part of the first MMU Alumni reading. The photo below shows the lovely Kim Moore presenting the event (I forgot to take photos until the very end).

Kim Moore hosting the alumni reading at the Manchester Poetry Library

I also found a copy of my own book on the poetry library shelves (I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that kind of thrill) and spent a whole afternoon reading through book after book as quickly as I could, before closing time. We should definitely have more poetry libraries in the UK!

I also enjoyed performing at Parc Arts, in Treforest, recently (see photo at the top of this post). It’s a lovely little old converted chapel, perched on the side of a hill, where they run community events and exhibitions.

Although I’ve been a bit slower with writing and editing and reading these last few months, I have read a few incredible books, and I have good intentions to share some of these on the blog, when time allows. I have also picked up the pace with submissions. But the most surreal (and wonderful, and also quite scary) development has been seeing reviews of my book published in magazines. One of these was from Paul Henry, published in the 60^th anniversary issue of Poetry Wales:

“I enjoyed this versatile debut, how Carney refrains lines and phrases within poems that chime and converse across the collection. A distinctive, lyrical voice speaks through them.”

And I discovered by accident that my book has also been reviewed in Magma (one of my dream publications) by Rishi Dastidar – the same poet who included it on The Guardian’s Best Poetry Books of 2023 list. Here’s an extract:

“…where [the book] gets really interesting is in how it makes us think about how we – neurodiverse and neurotypical alike – move through the world… with grace, and enviable and radical clarity, [the poems] show us that self-knowledge is the first step to accepting ourselves.”

It’s a very strange process, to encounter reviews written by people you’ve never met. And it feels a bit like bragging to share them online like this. But I’ve also realised how important it is to celebrate your achievements.

Along with all the encouraging comments, reviewers can interpret a poem in a way you never imagined. This feels uncanny, as if they were picking up your poem and placing it in a new, unfamiliar frame, giving it a different title and suggesting different intentions. Such comments can be difficult to read, even when the review itself is positive. However, a recent discussion with friends reminded me that publication is a process of letting go. We release our words into the world, and let them live their own lives. This ‘release’ can be an incredibly freeing experience. As readers interpret our work in different ways, new threads of meaning can emerge. The very fact that ten different people can write ten different reviews of the same book demonstrates the marvellous open-ended subjectivity of poetry, which is, after all, one of the reasons that many of us enjoy reading it and writing it. I’ve also written a few new poems inspired by this uncanny process, so perhaps it can be fruitful in unexpected ways.

I also know what it’s like to be the person writing the review, to feel that strange mix of trepidation and excitement as you delve into a poetry collection and attempt to articulate your reading experience in a way that is genuine, while also providing a taster for those who might want to buy the book. You are aware, at the same time, that you’re commenting on texts that may be very personal, especially where poets draw on their own experience of grief or trauma.

It’s really difficult to review a poetry collection; far more difficult than reviewing a novel, and I’m guessing most reviewers will agree that a collection needs to provoke sufficient interest to make the (normally unpaid or under-paid) process of writing a review feel worth the effort. I wrote about this process in a previous blog post: ‘The Problem of Reviewing Poetry’, which you can read here. And Zoë Brigley has also recently blogged about the difficult process of responding to negative reviews.

A snapshot of my office at Swansea University, which I shared with fellow poets Owen Sheers and Nia Davies

My favourite review of Octopus Mind so far is this one, from Amazon, and to date it remains the only review on that platform:

“A wonderously strange, lucidly off-kilter collection of poems… Carney writes poems that cast you adrift, that you get lost in, reading and re-reading them, unable to get away because they have caught you. For me the poem ‘Absolution’ was a real tour de force about so much more than just tears that I was completely captivated by it. This is a quietly sensational book, with so many stunningly good poems, that I wanted to hold my breath forever.” (El Tophero)

I love it when reviewers emphasise their own subjectivity, and I try to do this myself as much as possible.

And I’m leaving this post here, with a promise of more to come.